The Help Analysis

The Help is a movie based off of the inequalities of segregation in Mississippi in the 1960s. The film correctly illustrates the life of black maids who worked in white households. The film is fictional, but it is indeed factual. There is no inaccurate information, though many things, including the violence and brutality during this period, was minimized. There were many popular stereotypes that were both challenged and reinforced. For example, there was a stereotype that if you weren’t actively dating, then you were homosexual. There was also a stereotype that black people carried diseases and weren’t to use the same restrooms as whites.

The movie, The Help, is based on the book written by Kathryn Stockett. It was released in 2011 and directed by Tate Taylor (Taylor, 2017). The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960’s, and it is about the experiences black women had as maids for white families. These women decided to risk it all and tell their stories in an effort to show what is was really like for them (Taylor, 2011). The Help illustrates how these women fought racism and prejudice by becoming unified with one another. This paper will address how prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, and inequality affect the characters and their relationships in the story.

The Help displays issues of gender, class, and race. The wealthy white citizens are dominant in society and government. African Americans have segregation laws, pushing them to strive for equality. There is a push for upward mobility from the help to experience the American dream. Men are expected to work while women stay at home with their children. Men appear to be aggressive and hold dominance over women. Women are held to higher standards of beauty.

These maids did all the cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, and they cared for the families’ children. The maids were not allowed to use the restroom inside, they had an outhouse they had to use outside. The African American maids would also get beat if they did not respect their families. Moreover, the maids were not supposed to be ‘’friends’’ with the white people. If someone

The Jackson environment was featured by a rough social structure and certain rules of behavior. Rich, color, family background and reputation specified your social status and your relationship with others in the society. Although the racism had no legal foundation, it was hard for color people to move between classes or make their way into high social circles. If color people do Any act of rebellion could mean a lot of social problems and complete isolation in the community. This would cause very bad consequences especially in terms of employment or marriage considerations. We obviously touch this through the character of Celia and her relation with Hilly and the Junior, of which Hilly is the leader. Hilly considers Celia as “white trash” because she comes from a poor area of Mississippi called Sugarditch. She disregards Celia’s offers to help with arranging a Donations interest. Celia is a good and somewhat simple girl who just wants to be one of the Jackson women. We see that when at the benefit one of the Junior League member’s comments on Celia’s because she wears revealing cloths. She says “bosoms are for bedrooms and breastfeeding. Not for occasions with dignity. I want her to cover. Them. Up”. Hilly also thinks to herself that Celia does not have the “gentility” to join the Junior League which consists of respectable women in the community”. These instances expose how Celia was judged according to her look and background instead of her personality. The setting is important to make it easy for readers to understand the inequality that a lot of women faced during this 1960’s

The film ‘The Help” is originally a fictional novel based off of the actual characteristics of southern societies during the 1960’s. It is also recognized to display the end of racial injustice towards blacks to bring forth a new era of the civil rights movement. Even though it is merely a fictional book and movie, The Help is historically accurate as it portrays an economical, social , and political division between female white and African American societies. In The Help, white middle and upper class women are portrayed to be southern belle’s of Jackson, Mississippi while black women and their families live in poverty.

For Centuries, African Americans have been fighting for our rights by public speaking and articulate on one’s opinion especially the pros that are against racism. When reading the novel, The Help, Kathryn Stockett personal experiences as a child growing up in the segregated helped influence the writing for this novel, she cited the storytelling influences of her childhood and personal experiences of having an African American maid. The novel begins as decent, nice young southern women, sipping on their tea, having a nice conversation about today’s society and calling upon their maid every second. How Wonderful? No respect given, the maids has to toughened things out by not saying a word but they always have each other back which draws a sisterhood

Specially, the white women are unfair against black maids mainly, they have no jobs. Through the out the story, time after we can see the white women pilling up on the black maids who go to working in their house. Further more, it continues outside home. Lets take Ms. Hilly for instance, She goes around saying Minny "stole a candelabra from Miss Walters!", even thought it's true no person destroy someone's reputation. The white women clearly were not allowed to work since the maids are doing their work. Their real completions are the black women since their husband are off working hard. In result, they have no job but to gossip around; destroy relationship and break people's heart.

Black people were treated like nobodies in many places in the united states and in the book they were treated like nobodies. Minny’s mom was a house maid and that where she learned to clean. She wanted to become a house maid when she got older and that’s what she did. When her mother was a maid she made little pay, and she was treated

In the film ‘The Help’ directed by Tate Taylor, there are many important conflicts. One conflict is ongoing between the two characters, Minny and Hilly, of Minny not being able to use the inside toilet and Hilly not giving Minny the same privileges as white people. This conflicts help me understand the event of Minny giving Hilly her pie full of her feces. It helps me understand the reason Minny put her feces into the pie. It also helped me understand the negative relationship between Minny and Hilly.

The movie “The Help” was based In the early 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi. During this period of time it was very segregated, very much so that whites did not want African Americans to have contact with them, but were expected to fully take care of their children from birth to adulthood. Most of the African American maids later developed a strong bond with the children that they looked after. They tried teaching the kids to see no color, just to later witness them grow up to be brainwashed by the world to think of African Americans as less than. Except for one southern girl named Skeeter Phelan, who saw the equality in everyone. And one day she decided to interview the maids to get their perspectives on life and to get their story out to the world. At first the maids were hesitant because it would be serious consequences if anyone knew who exactly spoke up, but Skeeter did whatever she could to make sure all the maids were anonymous and no one knew. She risked many hardships like losing her relationship with her boyfriend and also building tension with the women of the Junior League. Successfully the maids stories got out and it opened eyes little by little.

There are five white female characters that help make up The Help and the only blacks being the maids themselves. One is the protagonist, Miss Skeeter Phelan who in my opinion is only viewed this way because she is the one supposedly helping the black women out by exposing the inequalities and injustices that black women faced during this time period but I feel she used them to empower herself as a white women and progress in her own life. Another white female character is Hilly Holbrook

In her review, Claudia was basically focused on how the movie was based on racism and that in this time in the 1960’s that the movie would not be a great movie to see. Claudia, states this statement because of all issues that were going on with the civil rights at the time and how their services as maids were taken for granted. While in the process the women who were maids went to meet with Sly to them their stories a bond was created by Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny and from there they build a sisterhood. Claudia also praises the fact that everyone did a great job in playing the characters. This article is a great resource because it pointed out how the maids were taken advantage of and this would be a great way to get specific details.

The film I chose was Mahogany. The drama film was about a struggling fashion design student name Tracy from Chicago who found success through modeling in Rome with the help of a fashion photographer. As she became more successful it tarnished her relationship with a social activist name Brian and in the fashion industry. In the film the actress shows that Tracy represents women who come from rough environments that are willing to see bigger dreams for themselves. Tracy is relatable to women then and now because we all have an urge of wanting success and all of the perks that comes with following something you are truly passionate about. Mahogany represents women going through the process of fame and success and not being able to handle the

Like I mentioned earlier, “The Help” seems to be an imperfect depiction of the 1960’s so far. And again, feminism was shown in the most stereotypical ways. Yes, it was very empowering to see how women can be liberated, but it was very cliché, feminism could have been shown in much more meaningful interesting ways.